Across all time and in every culture, persons of power have traveled to alternate realities on the vibrations of a journey drum.

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Painted drum with animal spirits


First there was a drum with a pipe shape in the newly dried hide.


And for many months as I worked with my Journey Oracle cards and went on hiking holidays, the drum stayed clear and smooth without my effort but for the stabilizing of the bullet hole in the rim,


And the wrapping of the eight pointed interlacement pattern of transformation woven into the back cedar ring of the drum. 


The drum transformed, as all beings do, and this was the first creature to be seen floating above the bowl.


Then the bird appeared, an odd but sturdy perch upon which the little bear could sit.


But the bird was not the last but only the next, as it in turn leans against a cat.


A strange fox made mostly of smoke with eyes that see to the spirit side balanced at the apex,


While a snake looped itself along the stem of the dreampipe.


Who are all these creatures? 


And why are they perched on a dreaming shaman drum

Each of these animals holds a place in the heart of my spiritual growth.  The fox of my personality is held by my bear and bird teachers.  The cat and the snake are the closest to the good work that comes through the stem of intention and out from the bowl into action.  So I guess you could say this is a family portrait.  What creatures are part of your family portrait?

Listen to the voices in this drum by clicking on this youtube link.  This 14" frame drum of Cortes Island blacktail deer hide and BC spruce wood is available in my webstore.